PRIVATE RIGHTS OF WAY

For commercial, residential and rural property owners and developers, the issue of private rights of way can be a major concern. With expertise in identifying the extent and existence of easements, as well as resolving access and boundary disputes, we will work with you to ensure the value of your land or interest is preserved.


Key Contacts

Michael Tatters

Partner 01793 412 633

Russell Reeves

Partner 0117 930 9598

PROTECTING YOUR COMMERCIAL INTERESTS

Our Property Litigation Team are specialists in private rights of way, with significant understanding of commercial, rural and agricultural land issues and resolving disagreements and complexities.

Through poor-quality plans or inadequate local searches, purchasers of land and property can unwittingly buy themselves into access and boundary disputes. To prevent this, we carry out detailed site visits, local authority inquiries, map inspections and historical research.

We will work with you to understand your needs and objectives and our excellent track record in claiming and demonstrating the existence of rights of way for business or agricultural purposes will help protect your commercial interests.

Our Property Dispute Resolution Team has been involved in a number of high-profile cases in this area. Highlights include:

  • Acting for a landowner after a neighbour blocked the way across agricultural land, causing major difficulties in access. We successfully proved the existence of a prescriptive right of way through more than 20 years’ historic, undocumented usage of an all-purposes right of way
  • Acting for three owners of agricultural land, successfully defending against a neighbour’s claim of a prescriptive right of way across their land. This right of way would have included rights to cross through their gardens with cars, horses and carts, with serious potential valuation consequences
  • Acting for a residential owner, proving both a right of way and right to park as a result of long prescriptive use, thus maintaining both essential rights and the value of the premises
  • Advising an owner of farm land on whether his right of way allowed him various rights of entry/exit points along the full length of a route, following his neighbour’s effort to impose one specific entry/exit point, potentially causing substantial interference with the usage of the land
  • Advising a commercial unit owner on whether to grant temporary access permission to defeat a neighbour’s claim for a prescriptive right of way. The claim was resolved, thereby preserving the development potential of the land and avoiding neighbours’ attempts to prevent development by claiming to have undocumented rights of way

  • Proving that a right of way exists after an obstruction
  • Resisting claims for a right of way where none has existed previously
  • Advising where the type of usage across a way is considered excessive and beyond acceptable levels for that particular land
  • Determining the route, extent and type of user applicable to a right of way


Contact

WARREN’S CLIENTS SAY ‘HE UNDERSTANDS OUR POSITION AND GIVES CONCISE AND CLEAR ADVICE’. CHAMBERS AND PARTNERS 2015

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